The Lebensraum Paradox

I always wondered about Germany's desire for more "living space" in the thirties, that ultimately led - among other motives - to its aggression against Russia. Among the other motives I count "opportunity", that according to Victor Davis Hanson, explains all the wars of the Ancient Greeks on.  Also, Nazis feared Communism, an international movement that saw as its duty to interfere in Germany's internal affairs. But from where the imperative of conquering more space? Germany was a large country, with excellent climate and agricultural lands, and with a rapidly declining population.

I found one possible explanation in Patrick Buchanan's latest article (about the Houtis of all Muslim sects). He mentions facts I had been unaware of. Quote:

Our aim is to “starve the whole population — men, women, and children, old and young, wounded and sound — into submission,” said First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill. He was speaking of Germany at the outset of the Great War of 1914-1918. Americans denounced as inhumane this starvation blockade that would eventually take the lives of a million German civilians.

After the Armistice of Nov. 11, 1918, however, the starvation blockade was not lifted until Germany capitulated to all Allied demands in the Treaty of Versailles.

As late as March 1919, four months after the Germans laid down their arms, Churchill arose in Parliament to exult, “We are enforcing the blockade with rigor, and Germany is very near starvation.”

Buchanan holds the Allies responsible for German starvation, which is only half truth. Food was scarce everywhere. Yet that generation of Germans lived with a deep fear of starvation and may have felt that they needed the cereal growing lands in Ukraine and Russia. In spite of the fact that Communist Russia was selling them grains for German industrial products. That may explain the paradox of a rich country with falling population seeking "Lebensraum".